A Look Back on The East Village Eye

Tomorrow evening at 6, the Jefferson Market Library (Sixth Avenue near Ninth Street) is hosting a panel featuring one-time contributors to the East Village Eye.

Some background: 

In February 2023, the New York Public Library acquired the East Village Eye archive from founder and editor Leonard Abrams. The collection consists of documents, manuscripts, artworks, videos, ephemera, and a complete run of the original printed publication (72 issues in total), which was published from 1979 to 1987 and covered the neighborhood's arts, politics, and social currents during a transformative decade. 

The collection also documents the daily workings of a small publication – advertising, correspondence, datebooks, financial records, and more. Contributors included resident advice columnist Cookie Mueller, Richard Hell, and David Wojnarowicz, and the newspaper featured images from dozens of acclaimed photographers early in their careers. 

Sadly, Abrams died in April 2023, only a few months after the collection came to the NYPL. He was 68.

 

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The NYPL's archive of the legendary East Village Eye now available to the public

Images from the NYPL

The New York Public Library's extensive archive of the East Village Eye is now processed and available to researchers. 

In February 2023, the NYPL acquired the East Village Eye archive from founder and editor Leonard Abrams. The collection consists of documents, manuscripts, artworks, videos, ephemera, and a complete run of the original printed publication (72 issues in total), which was published from 1979 to 1987 and covered the neighborhood's arts, politics, and social currents during a transformative decade. 

The collection also documents the daily workings of a small publication – advertising, correspondence, datebooks, financial records, and more. Contributors included resident advice columnist Cookie Mueller, Richard Hell, and David Wojnarowicz, and the newspaper featured images from dozens of acclaimed photographers early in their careers.

"The Library's acquisition of the East Village Eye archive is the perfect outcome of our years-long search for the best home for these materials," Abrams said upon the purchase last year. 

"We are looking forward to seeing the creative ways that the collection will be used by scholars, students, educators, artists, activists, and anyone passionate about the history and culture of downtown New York City,"  said Julie Golia, associate director, manuscripts, archives, and rare books and Charles J. Liebman curator of manuscripts, in a statement.

Highlights of the collection include: 

• A full print run of all 72 issues of the East Village Eye in pristine condition (no other public institution possesses a complete print run of the periodical)
• Extensive administrative records and founding business documents for the magazine, including correspondence with staff, contributors, advertisers, and readers throughout the Eye's eight-year run
• Abrams' handwritten pocket planners showing his relationship with artists, musicians, businesses, and writers across the neighborhood and beyond
• Promotional materials created by the Eye, including maps and guides of the East Village and invitations and flyers for Eye-affiliated parties, openings, and events
• A collection of photography of the downtown scene by a roster of acclaimed photographers employed or engaged by the Eye, including Marcia Resnick, Eric Kroll, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, and others
• Candid and behind-the-scenes snapshots of Abrams and the Eye staff and contributors at work and as participants in the neighborhood's vibrant nightlife

Per the NYPL: "The records of the Eye will be essential to researchers studying the evolution of the punk movement, the growth of hip-hop, the rise of HIV/AIDS, and the early careers of artists like Basquiat, Mapplethorpe and Fab Five Freddy."

Researchers can access the East Village Eye records in the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room for Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 476 Fifth Ave. at 42nd St. (Find more info here.)

You can learn more about the East Village Eye records from the collection guide and this blog post by the NYPL's Golia.

Sadly, Abrams (above left with Fab Five Freddy) died suddenly last April, only a few months after the collection came to the NYPL. He was 68. 

The NYPL "is proud to provide access to the archive that represents Abrams' important cultural and journalistic legacy."

Previously on EVG:

• Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

RIP Leonard Abrams

Photo from March 23 by Stacie Joy 

Leonard Abrams, the editor and publisher of the East Village Eye, the legendary magazine published from 1979 to 1987 that covered the neighborhood's arts, politics and social currents at the time, died suddenly on Sunday, according to several of his longtime friends. 

Abrams, who started the publication at age 24, had recently announced — much to his delight — that the Eye's archives, consisting of documents, manuscripts, artworks, videos, ephemera and a complete run of the original printed publication, had been purchased by the New York Public Library. (This article in The New Yorker has many more details about the archives.) 

On March 23, Abrams presided over a celebration of the acquisition at the Bowery Electric, an evening that included a performance by the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. 

His friends shared some thoughts on social media about his death...

My friend & former editor Leonard Abrams passed away suddenly yesterday. We met in 1990 when he was the US editor of Soul Underground. I'm in shock; he and I were just writing one another a few weeks ago and now he's gone. https://t.co/19WRYjCB2d @lithub @villagevoice pic.twitter.com/NY0mfpmqRO

— gonzomike (@gonzomike) April 3, 2023

Could EVEye publisher Leonard Abrams really be dead of a heart attack? He was only last week celebrating the NYPL getting the Eye archives. He was a true Tom Sawyer with that thing, getting us all to work for an apple core - but it wouldn’t have happened without him.

— Walter Robinson (@walter10065) April 3, 2023

Saddened to wake up to the news that #eastvillageeye Publisher, #LeonardAbrams has passed away. As a documentarian, I am so thankful of his rich documentation of the East Village Art Scene through his paper. And, he was such a wonderful, giving person.

— Make Me Famous Movie - ART documentary (@famousartdoc) April 3, 2023

His post-Eye career included opening Hotel Amazon, which brought warehouse-style parties to a former LES school featuring, among many others, De La Soul, Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys. He also made the documentary "Quilombo Countr," narrated by Chuck D, about a community founded by escaped slaves in Brazil. 

However, in recent years, his main ambition was to find a home for the Eye archives.

As he wrote: 

NYPL's acquisition of the East Village Eye archive is the perfect outcome of our years-long search for the best home for these materials. I can't think of another institution with the breadth and depth of interest, the institutional strength and the dedication to the common good that compares to the New York Public Library — not to mention where it lives. New York deserves to keep this essential trove of materials. It covers a time when it wasn't always easy to love New York City, but we always knew how important it was to bring these voices to the public and to preserve them, even if it meant dragging them from one storage space to another for some 35 years.

In a 2012 interview with EVG, he discussed the legacy of the 72 issues of East Village Eye. 

I'm most proud of having gotten so many of them out. And hearing someone say something like "I moved to NY because I read the Eye in my home state." I was gratified to have published columns by David Wojnarowicz and Glenn O'Brien and Cookie Mueller and Richard Hell. And to have been told that the term "hip hop" was first printed in the Eye. And to have presented so many idiosyncratic voices in such a deadpan manner, as if what they said was as obvious as the weather. That was fun.

The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black headlines celebration for the East Village Eye

Photos by Stacie Joy

On Thursday night, the Bowery Electric hosted a special performance for East Village Eye and the New York Public Library. 

Last month, it was announced that the archives of the East Village Eye, the legendary magazine published from 1979 to 1987 that covered the neighborhood's arts, politics and social currents at the time, will have a new home at the New York Public Library. 

A full house was on hand for a slate of spoken-word artists, Nathan Ross, Ira Abramowitz, Kathe Burkhart and Bob Holman...

Here's editor-publisher Leonard Abrams...

And headliners the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, the glam-punk performance legends led by East Village-based artist Kembra Pfahler...

...with Samoa Moriki...

... and Chase Noelle of cumgirl8 sitting in on the drums...

It's always a pleasure to see the VHoKB... and congratulations to the East Village Eye on the acquisition. (Read more about it at The New Yorker here.)

[Updated] The archives of The East Village Eye now at the New York Public Library

The archives of the East Village Eye, the legendary magazine published from 1979 to 1987 that covered the arts, politics and social currents of the neighborhood at the time, have a new home at the New York Public Library. 

From the Eye's website: 

After numerous discussions and negotiations with the world's leading research institutions, we are thrilled to announce that the East Village Eye archive, consisting of documents, manuscripts, artworks, videos, ephemera and a complete run of the original printed publication, has been acquired by the New York Public Library.

And via editor-publisher Leonard Abrams: 

NYPL's acquisition of the East Village Eye archive is the perfect outcome of our years-long search for the best home for these materials. I can't think of another institution with the breadth and depth of interest, the institutional strength and the dedication to the common good that compares to the New York Public Library – not to mention where it lives. New York deserves to keep this essential trove of materials. It covers a time when it wasn't always easy to love New York City, but we always knew how important it was to bring these voices to the public and to preserve them, even if it meant dragging them from one storage space to another for some 35 years. 

There's a detailed piece about all this at The New Yorker, via writer Hannah Gold ... here's a passage with NYPL curator Julie Golia: 

Golia explained to us what would happen next: when the library acquires a collection, it is inspected for pests and water damage. When necessary, materials are isolated and treated in the Disaster Recovery room. Once they've been cleared, the collection moves into the archival-processing queue and the items are rehoused in acid-free folders and boxes. 

The library's staff begins to make the finding aid, essentially an index of the collection. This inventorying can be time-consuming, depending on the scale of the collection, which can vary widely — the Eye archive arrived in fewer than twenty containers, which is relatively small. The library's New Yorker archive, on the other hand, is stored in more than two thousand containers. 

Golia says the East Village Eye archives will arrive at the basement stacks in about a year. The finding aid will go live on the N.Y.P.L.'s Web site, and researchers will officially be able to view the materials. 

As Golia explained the process, Abrams was visibly moved, yet characteristically irreverent. "I don't care what order they’re in!" he insisted, when Golia told us it was library policy to preserve the way donors had grouped their own collections. "Leonard organized them in a certain way, because that's the way his mind worked, and part of what we're trying to preserve is the way his mind works." Abrams waved his hands dismissively, the journalist both flattered and uncomfortable with attention turned his way. Before we left the library's processing center, he had a question: Would they let him throw a party? 

Updated 3/13 ... the party has been rescheduled for March 23... there's a celebration of this union coming up on March 2 with The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black at Bowery Electric and other guests...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

The East Village Eye reopens tonight

[Special edition of the East Village Eye]

Here's some news about the East Village Eye, the influential arts newspaper/magazine hybrid that published 72 issues from May 1979 through January 1987. Via the EVG inbox...

We are pleased to enclose an updated schedule of special events surrounding Howl! Happening’s East Village Eye Show, opening tonight from 6-9.

The events point to the Eye’s key role in nurturing talent and giving voice to a generation of artists and writers whose groundbreaking work commented on the art and social history of the period and the unique collaborative spirit that flourished amid the rubble and rumblings of the EV/LES in the 80s.

Sunday, Sept. 18, 7 PM
East Village Art: Scene or Circumstance?
A Panel Discussion with Leonard Abrams, Yasmin Ramirez, Ph.D., Sur Rodney (Sur), Arthur Fournier, and Anthony Haden-Guest
Expanding upon the East Village Eye Show, key figures from the period and beyond discuss the times and the neighborhood that changed the culture forever. Moderated by Leonard Abrams, editor and publisher of the Eye.

Saturday, Sept. 24 and Sunday, Sept. 25 7 PM
East Village Eye Showcases the Films of The 1980s
From The Cinema of Transgression known for its shocking themes and black humor and Sara Driver’s “lost” debut film to a fully restored version of Tommy Turner and David Wojnarowicz’ Where Evil Dwells and films that helped define the No Wave scene by key members of Downtown No Wave Cinema, this evening presents works by some of the most important filmmakers to come out of the East Village in the 1980s.

Reflecting the cultural turmoil and the explosion of creative expression of the times, these films illuminate the groundbreaking, sometimes shocking, experimental ethos of the neighborhood. Included are Coleen Fitzgibbon LES (Lower East Side) (1975); Vivienne Dick Liberty's Booty (1980); James Nares Rome 78 (1978); Sara Driver You Are Not I (1981); Tommy Turner Simonland (1984); Richard Kern Stray Dogs (1985); Nick Zedd They Eat Scum (1979); Richard Kern & Nick Zedd Thrust in Me (1985); Tommy Turner and David Wojnarowicz Where Evil Dwells (1985)

And tonight at the Delancey, there's the East Village Eye Party starring James Chance & The Contortions, The Lenny Kaye Connection and the Sic F*cks. Ticket info here.

The East Village Eye show is up through Oct. 9 at the Howl Happening! space, 6 E. First St. near the Bowery.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

An 'East Village Eye' mini-symposium, plus back issues and T-shirts

Ugh. Sorry for the short notice on this. My fault! This free event is tonight 6-8. Via the EVG inbox...

The East Village Eye Archive, in conjunction with Printed Matter, Inc., presents the First "Officially Sanctioned" Back Issue Selloff, in which selected copies of the East Village Eye magazine will be put on sale to the public ... as well as several fabulous t-shirt designs sporting historical East Village Eye covers.

East Village Eye was a monthly magazine that produced 72 issues from 1979 through 1987, focusing on the music, art, film, words, performance and social movements of the era, much of which was being made in the neighborhood it called home. The magazine is known today for its uncanny and prescient sense of culture´s evolution and direction, fluidly moving between the street, the avant-garde and the world at large.

To mark this big selloff event, we are presenting a mini-symposium entitled “How Hip Hop Came Downtown,” covering the process in which members of New York’s media and fine art communities brought rap music, graffiti art and breakdancing from the inner-city ghettos to a wider audience that has since spread across the world. Leading this discussion will be Eye publisher/editor Leonard Abrams, scholar Yazmin Ramirez, musician and multimedia artist Michael Holman, and Fab 5 Freddy.

Find more info here. Printed Matter is at 195 Tenth Ave. between West 21st Street and West 22nd Street.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

Website launch party for the East Village Eye

From the EVG inbox...

The East Village Eye Archive holds its Website Launch Party this coming Monday, Dec. 9 at the Tammany Hall bar on 152 Orchard Street to celebrate our newly remade website featuring six PDFs of East Village Eye magazines with brand-new T shirts to match, so you can read the mag, rock the shirt.

All 72 issues of the East Village Eye, the legendary magazine published from 1979 to 1987 that covered and was actively engaged in the arts, politics and social currents of the time, are being scanned and preserved in searchable PDFs. This Spring we put up out Top Ten Issues for Fashion. Now we're showing our Six Most Wearable Eyes. So you can read the mags, then choose – if you can – between James White (our iconic Issue #1), Fashion, Drug Bust, Picasso Sucks, Sex, or Planet Rock.

The party stars Joey Arias and His Band, with Phoebe Legere plus Brenda Bergman & the Bodacious Ta Tas. Spoken word by Rene Ricard, Bob Holman, Glenn O'Brien, Max Blagg and Susana Sedgwick.

Plus: a special DJ set by Jaleel of TV on the Radio. More great DJing by Greg Poole, Brant Lee, Alix Brignol, Natasha Diggs, Huggy Bear, Rob Alioa and Sister From Another Planet. And: a special screening of "Wild Style" by Charlie Ahearn. And surprise guests! $15 cover charge. 21 and over (it's a bar, after all).

Keep looking for new developments at the East Village Eye website, where we will continue to add to the discourse with more issues and other materials about the Eye, the East Village and the era.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

The East Village Eye archive officially goes online this week

From the EV Grieve inbox...

All 72 issues of the East Village Eye, the legendary magazine published from 1979 to 1987 that covered and was actively engaged in the arts, politics and social currents of the time, are being scanned and preserved in searchable PDFs. While we undergo development of several integrated projects, we begin with ten full issues deemed to contain the most relevant fashion-related content. This launch coincides with the current show at the Metropolitan Museum of New York entitled “Punk: Chaos to Couture,” which we seek to augment with this contribution.

Not every rock'n roll-filled mag covers fashion, but a key part of the reaction to the purposely dressed-down, self-effacing attitude of the previous era was to consciously use clothing to display individual creativity, vitality and viewpoint. This is why the Eye devoted pages to the work of Animal X, Betsy Johnson, Manic Panic, Natasha, Patricia Field, Trash & Vaudeville and many other such leaders in the field, not forgetting the naturally stylish on the streets of New York, from the Lower East Side to the South Bronx.

Keep looking for new developments here, where we will continue to add to the discourse with more issues and other materials about the Eye, the East Village and the era. And don't forget to follow our Twitter page @EastVillageEye for more news and updates.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

[The first issue of East Village Eye in May 1979]

Marc H. Miller recently passed along word about the latest edition to Gallery 98, the online store for the 98 Bowery website.

Miller has obtained a nearly complete set of the East Village Eye, the influential arts newspaper/magazine hybrid that published 72 issues from May 1979 through January 1987.

So I thought this might be an opportune time to interview Leonard Abrams, who was 24 when he started the Eye in early 1979. With an array of unpaid contributors, including Richard Hell, Cookie Mueller, Glenn O’Brien and David Wojnarowicz, the Eye wrote about the neighborhood's emerging art scene as well as provided ample music coverage.

His post-Eye career included opening Hotel Amazon, which brought warehouse-style parties to a former LES school featuring, among many others, De La Soul, Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys.

Today, Abrams lives in Williamsburg. In recent years he made the documentary "Quilombo Country" narrated by Chuck D about a community founded by escaped slaves in Brazil. Meanwhile, he has been working on publishing the entire Eye archive online in searchable PDFs accessible for free. ("This is imminent," he says.)

You were 24 when you launched the Eye in 1979. Being pretty young, were there any issues with people taking you seriously as a publisher at the onset?

People thought I was older. Then after the Eye folded they thought I was younger. Actually at the time a lot of people in the scene pretended they were younger so as not to be thought of as hippie interlopers.

But as I recall, there was such a feeling of newness to what we were doing that no one seemed to feel they could pull rank on the basis of age. And finally, I think that people take longer to get going these days. 24 isn't really that young. I started a paper in Denver when I was 21. That was young.

Did it seem as if you were onto something special at the time with the Eye?

Oh yes. I really felt the weight of it at times. In fact I probably would have pulled the plug a lot earlier but that I felt it was too important not to keep doing it. It's not that we were saving lives [we probably cost a few] but just helping sustain an atmosphere where people could feel so much was possible was very important. And feeling we were remapping the brain was heady, as it were.

What was a typical scene like at the Eye office?

We started at 167 Ludlow then moved to I think 54 East 3rd Street then to 120 St. Marks Place then to 605 East 9th Street then to 611 Broadway. A typical scene was me fighting with music editor and typesetter Celeste-Monique Lindsey over something political and/or inconsequential, people coming in for their mail or to pick up a copy, us on the phone trying to get everyone to hand in their stories on time even though they were writing for free and, the last week of the month, a frenzy of editing, typing and pasting-up.

Kind of stuff that seemed more fun after it was over.

[The Eye staff circa 1985, courtesy of Leonard Abrams]

Do you think something like the East Village Eye could work today (print or online) or do you think the days of any kind of scene here are long over?

I really don't know. Today it's so easy to communicate that it's almost like the communication takes the place of the action. Mind you, we were mostly communicating about communication anyway, but still...

The physical limitations of distribution make a difference too. We sent the Eye out all over the country [in a limited way], but I think text is taken more seriously 1) when you have to pay for it and 2) when there isn't so much of it around.

Still, the kind of scene there was at the time was based on a lot of people doing things out of their own need for self-expression, and now, at least in New York, we have a regime in which hierarchy and monetization, the antitheses of creativity, are the starting points. Thus we need to convince Mayor Bloomberg to immolate himself. While we wait for that to happen, someone should step up and print something.

How about Hotel Amazon? Do you think a space like that could work today on the Lower East Side?

I'd like to see one. Especially since a lot of the spaces in the neighborhood are staffed by clueless snotnoses. But what do you expect? It's the club industry. When Hotel Amazon started I was fairly clueless myself, I was just lucky to be around when hip hop was fresh and generating tons of great acts all the time. The other problem is the great increase in legalism and regulation. The Hotel Amazon was illegal in all kinds of ways. Otherwise it would never have happened. But look at Rubulad. They still manage to throw a bash.

What are you most proud of with the Eye?

I'm most proud of having gotten so many of them out. And hearing someone say something like "I moved to NY because I read the Eye in my home state." I was gratified to have published columns by David Wojnarowicz and Glenn O'Brien and Cookie Mueller and Richard Hell. And to have been told that the term "hip hop" was first printed in the Eye. And to have presented so many idiosyncratic voices in such a deadpan manner, as if what they said was as obvious as the weather. That was fun.

[East Village Eye covers courtesy of Marc H. Miller and 98 Bowery]

For further reading on EV Grieve:
Life at 98 Bowery: 1969-1989

Revisiting Punk Art